Lack of RTI-related data blamed on "poor inputs" from public authorities of Central ministries, state departments

Counterview Desk
As
India's Right to Information Act (RTI Act) will enter the 12th year of
implementation on October 12, a new study by the Commonwealth Human
Rights Initiative (CHRI) has said that “not all Information Commissions
come out with their Annual Reports in a timely manner.” “A
major reason for the delays in the preparation of the annual reports is
lack of inputs from the public authorities through their parent
ministries and departments”, a CHRI report, prepared by senior RTI
activist Venkatesh Nayak, says.
“Although the Information
Commissions are known to press upon the respective Governments to
fulfill their reporting obligations, compliance is poor”, it adds.
This
year, like before, CHRI says, “There are only a handful of annual
reports published for the latest year due. As a result, it is difficult
to answer the most basic question - how many RTI applications are
received from citizens all over the country in a given year.”
Based
on the data collected by CHRI about RTI applications from all the annual
reports of the Information Commissions available on their websites, the
report says, “A total of 1.75 crore (1,75,23,154) RTI applications are
reported to have been made to the Central and State Governments during
the period 2005-2015.”
Giving a break up, it says, the Central
Government received more than a quarter (27.20% i.e., 47.66 lakh) of the
1.75 crore requests submitted by citizens in 2005-15, followed by the
Maharasthra government, which received 26.40% i.e., 46.26 lakh, the
Karnataka government 11.83%, Tamil Nadu 4.89%, and Gujarat, long
propagated as India's model state, 4.32%, less than the proportion of
its population, which is about 5%.
“Counting the RTI statistics
published by 15 Information Commissions during the period 2013-15
(taking into account statistics available only for the latest year) a
total of 26.60 lakh RTI requests were made by citizens during a period
of one year”, the report says.
Based on this, the report adds, “It
may be estimated said that the total number of RTI requests submitted
across the country in a year during this period could be about 53-56
lakhs.” Other RTI activists peg the figure at 75-80 lakh RTI
applications per year.
The report regrets, “None of the Information
Commissions that follow the financial year reporting cycle, have
published their Annual Reports for the year 2015-16”, adding, “Amongst
the Information Commissions that follow the calendar year reporting
cycle, only Meghalaya and Sikkim have published their Annual Reports for
the year 2015.”
It further says, “The Karnataka Information
Commission is the only body that has published online, all annual
reports due, since October 2005”, insisting, “There is an urgent need to
ensure the publication of annual reports in the larger States of Uttar
Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.”
The report underlines, “Without
data from these States which have a large number of RTI users and
activists, it is not possible to draw a more accurate statistical
picture of the volume of RTI applications filed across the country.”

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